The 48th International Film
Festival of India (IFFI) is just around the corner and it promises to be a
star-studded affair. Despite the controversy surrounding Sujoy Ghosh’s
resignation as the jury chief following the decision of the I&B Ministry to
drop S Durga and Nude from the Indian Panorama section, this year’s IFFI
promises to be biggest event in the festival’s long history. For starters, Shah Rukh Khan will be
inaugurating this year’s fest. Also present on the occasion would be actors
Shahid Kapoor and Katrina Kaif. The inaugural function would be held at Dr
Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Stadium. At the festival’s closing ceremony, the
legendary Indian actor Amitabh Bachchan will be presented with the Personality of the
Year Award.

India’s equivalent of the Cannes Film
Festival, IFFI, over the years, has become a great platform for Indian
filmmakers to showcase their work in front of an august international gathering
from the world of cinema. The festival is a great forum for propagation of the
regional Indian cinema. Some of the major regional language film’s to be
screened this year are Bisorjon
(Bengali), Idak (Marathi), Juze (Konkani), Khynikaa (Oriya), Manusangada
(Tamil), Railway Children (Kannada), Take Off (Malayalam), and Village Rockstars (Assamese). The Hindi
feature films to be screened at the 48th IFFI include Jolly LLB 2, Kadvi Hawa, Newton, Rukh, and Secret Superstar.

Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan

Celebrated Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan
would be bestowed with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2017 IFFI. The
festival will also feature a retrospective wherein three of his films viz. Exotica, The Sweet Hereafter, and Remember
would be screened. The opening film of the festival is the renowned Iranian
filmmaker Majid Majidi’s Hindi film Beyond
the Clouds. The film revolves around a brother and sister, not unlike Children of Heaven. Argentinean
filmmaker Pablo César’s Thinking of Him would be the festival’s closing film. It
explores a chapter in the life of Rabindranath Tagore. The list of 15 films
that are competing for the Golden and Silver Peacocks include Vivian Qu’s Angels Wear White, Robin Campillo’s Beats Per Minute, and Jan Speckenbach’s Freiheit.

Om Puri in Ardh Satya

One of the highlights of this year’s festival
is the James Bond Retrospective which will feature films like Dr. No, Golden Eye, Licence to Kill,
Goldfinger and Skyfall. Another major attraction for cinephiles will be the Homage
Section which features films such as Jaane
Bhi Do Yaaro (Kundan Shah), Ardh
Satya (Om Puri), Achanak (Vinod
Khanna), Ocean of an Old Man (Tom
Alter), and Ayirathil Oruvan (J.
Jayalalithaa).The festival will also
screen restored versions of classics like Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, Alfred Hitchcock’s The
Lodger, and Andrei Tarkovsky’s The
Sacrifice.

The 2017 edition of IFFI is being organized
from November 20-28, 2017 at Goa by the Ministry of Information and
Broadcasting.

Here's what some of the celebrities had to say about the upcoming cinematic extravaganza: